


Sun in Shadow, Shadow in Sun

by rannadylin



Series: Watcher Violet [2]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Caed Nua, F/M, Gen, Post-Game(s), Religion, eothas - Freeform, faith - Freeform, priest of eothas, underground faith: literally and figuratively, very early incipient watcher/eder crushes so this is more gen than f/m
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 00:37:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11862975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rannadylin/pseuds/rannadylin
Summary: Having dealt with Thaos deep below the earth in Sun in Shadow, Watcher Violet, priest of Eothas, returns to Caed Nua to construct a place for the Sun she follows in the Shadow of the Endless Paths. Edér, of course, helps.





	Sun in Shadow, Shadow in Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohlawsons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohlawsons/gifts).



> For the inaugural prompt of our new Pillars Prompts Weekly blog on tumblr, the prompt being Homecoming! Also this just so happens to fill another of the wonderful prompts @ohlawsons gave me for the fic swap a few weeks ago (to write about Violet's ways of worshiping Eothas), and I do so love when I can hit two prompts with one fic, so... :-D

Violet had knelt in dozens of Eothas’ temples throughout her journeys. Some things were always the same: the candles burning to banish shadows to Berath’s realm, the hymns and chanted prayers, the celebrations at sunrise. In other ways, the homes of the god differed greatly, from humble one-room sanctuaries like the one back home where she’d grown up in the faith and eventually devoted herself to her god’s business, to grand cathedrals like the ones she’d seen in Aedyr and Readceras -- and like the one in Gilded Vale must have been, once.

But nothing could compare to the chapel in which she now knelt, for this, she had built with her own hands to honor a god whose claim to the title she now had cause to question.

Well, Edér had helped, of course.

There was no belfry to display it to the world, but the Candle of the Endless Dawn burned brightly in its lantern from the rafters as the two of them finished the chant: _Day comes soon, prepare for the dawn. Nothing is hidden from his reach._

 _Just as well,_ Violet thought, _that his reach is so far. It’s got a ways to go to find this place._ It was unlikely anything more than metaphorical sun’s rays would ever shine on this underground chapel, renovated in the past months from one of the chambers below her keep, in the Paths of Od Nua, gathering dust now that she and her friends had cleared them so thoroughly of xaurips, ogres, drakes, and even one fearsome dragon.

With the Hollowborn Crisis -- and her own soul’s crisis -- dealt with, Violet had returned home to Caed Nua and considered her life’s work. She’d served in Eothas’ temple most of her life, so when circumstances had required her to leave home and family behind, she had optimistically regarded it as a chance to be her god’s candle in all the wide world. She had wandered far, ministering to the faithful in many parts of Eora -- but that was easy, where it was still _legal_. Eothas might have been silent in the years since the Saint’s War, but the tenets of the faith were clear and Violet threw herself into works of healing, charity, comfort to those hoping for better days. The Dyrwood was another matter entirely, but she was firm in her calling and all the more determined to make Caed Nua a haven for what remained of Eothas’ scattered and outlawed followers.

The (in her humble opinion) best of that lot got to his feet now, prayers finished, and reached down to help her up. The twinkle in Edér’s eye mirrored the candlelight as he glanced around the chapel. “This place…” he paused, cleared his throat.

“I know it’s not much,” Violet said softly. “Not compared to what you had in Gilded Vale.”

Edér picked up one of the candles from their box by the altar, ready for prayers of the faithful. “Are you kidding, Vi?” he murmured, running his fingers along the smooth wax. “It’s incredible. Amazing. It’s been years since I could say those words out loud in any sorta company.” He glanced back at her with a grin. “Nice acoustics for it down here. Oh, and the company’s not bad either.”

Violet rolled her eyes and turned briskly for the door to hide the blush and the ruffling of her fur. “Good, since you’re stuck with me for a priest here.”

“Maybe not for so long,” Edér mused, then hastened to amend as he caught up to her at the door, “I mean -- no complaints! You’re fine -- I mean, it was good -- really good. I could listen to you lead the prayers anytime, Vi. Ain’t heard anything so sweet as that in years. And you’ll do sermons, too, won’t you?”

“Sure,” she said as they took the stairs back up to the keep. “Although it’s going to be strange delivering sermons to a congregation of one, Edér.”

“That’s what I was saying,” he said, a spark of enthusiasm springing up in his tone. “Might not be just the two of us for long. I sorta met some people, back in Defiance Bay.”

Violet turned to him, eyes wide with hope. “Eothasians?”

Edér nodded. “Asked around a bit. Carefully! ‘Sides, enough people know my, ah, history that they’d have been seeking me out if I hadn’t done it first. Found out there’s a network of sorts, people meeting in their homes, in the catacombs, wherever, just quietly keeping the light alive. They call it the Night Market.”

A curious title, she thought, for servants of the sun. Or curiously fitting, when the light was driven underground to places like Caed Nua’s chapel. There was more Sun in Shadow here than there had ever been beneath Burial Isle. “And they’d come from Defiance Bay for this? Our little chapel?”

“Dunno, but seems there’s more of us in these parts than we figured, too. A woman in Brackenbury gave me a letter of introduction to a cell leader in Dyrford, and another on a farm less than a day’s walk from Caed Nua. Folks have been clinging to the chants they know, coming together in their cellars for fear of Raedric’s men. They have no priest. Just prayers and hymns and whispers to recite ‘em in.” They’d reached the end of the master stair down to the Paths. Edér swung the trap door out of the way, pulled himself through, and again reached down a hand for Violet, helping her out into the light of the courtyard. He kept hold of her hand a moment longer, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth as he repeated, “They have no priest, Vi.”

She squeezed his hand and said with a smile like a sunbeam, “I guess they do, now.”


End file.
